[License-review] When a submission for approval stops being one (was: For Approval: License Zero Reciprocal Public License)

[Kyle Mitchell]

On 2017-10-25 23:10, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Kyle Mitchell (kyle at kemitchell.com):
>
> > As for the "draft" designation, for what it's worth, I used
> > that term, and adopted that mindset, after reading this bit
> > of https://opensource.org/approval:
> [...]
>
> Good point.  Sorry, I completely missed that nuance, and overinterpreted
> your wording.
>
> At the same time, it's definitely true that you've been doing an
> unusually large amount of post-submission redrafting.  While I can only
> admire your patience and intelligent responses, I'll confess that I held
> back until today in part because this whole thread seemed a time sink,
> despite good intentions.  And I think I you're right about widespread
> weariness.

No apology necessary.  license-review's a country planted
thick with nuances!

And you're right that I've done a lot of editing.  That's
very much in my lawyerly mode, where a good result is often
about coming up with a lot of variations, and selecting the
best.  But perhaps that's not the right dance on this list,
even if it's legal in nature, even if I'm of a mind to
welcome as much input as possible.

Clearly that backfired as far as your thoughts go ... and
for that _I_ am sorry.

> > Frankly, I won't be cajoling anyone, even my friends, to will a
> > demonstrable licensor-user base into being for license-review.
>
> I will put this in the form of a question because I might be missing
> something:  If a new (but unconsidered by OSI) open source licence has
> distinctive and compelling utility, why isn't it going to draw a
> demonstrable licensor-user base without certification?  To be flip, the
> way ones knows something is compelling is that it compels.

As others have mentioned, many consumers, distributors, and
service providers of note require OSI-approved license
terms.  Turning all that down, even temporarily, costs.  The
more it costs---another way of saying, the more valuable OSI
approval becomes---the more benefit a new license has to
offer over all prior OSI-approved alternatives to make sense
for adoption before approval.

The clear OSI-approved alternative to L0-R as envisioned is
AGPL-3.0.  I can create an artificial incentive to use L0-R
before OSI approval by promoting it as the only copyleft
public license compatible with the dual-licensing platform
I'm offering.  But I don't feel right putting that kind of
pressure on my community.  As things stand, I know more than
a few users who want the strongest copyleft license
available.  But the strength of AGPL plus the practical
benefits of OSI approval outweigh the strength of L0-R
without approval, even if L0-R with approval would overcome
AGPL with approval.

> But yes, you also definitely have an excellent point that L0-R
> introduces one of the very few truly novel approaches we've seen in many
> a year, and you have my unabashed admiration for that.

I'm just the lawyer.  The ideas come from folks still making
software full time, still contributing to the community.  I
was able to hear them, put it together, and do my job.
That's all.

-- 
Kyle Mitchell, attorney // Oakland // (510) 712 - 0933